Some faculty members came and sat right in front of them, a distressful situation. One of these was the English teacher who also happened to be the daughter of the principal. During the singing of one of the hymns, she suddenly turned around and asked, "Who has that beautiful tenor voice?" After Schleenbaker sheepishly confessed, she observed, "You're going to go someplace with a voice like that."

He teamed up with three other classmates and formed the Sophomore Quartet, one that stayed together through the next three years, renaming themselves each year by claiming their class name until they graduated as the venerable Senior Quartet. He also sang in the choir.

When he graduated in 1948, he attended Washington Missionary College, now Columbia Union College for a year and then dropped out for a year before going to Emmanuel Missionary College, now Andrews University, where he graduated in 1954 with a major in theology and a minor in history and music. He was the only one in his family to go to college and do something with music, although two of his brothers also had music training. While at EMC he continued to sing in quartets.

Following graduation, he served in the Michigan Conference as a pastor and was a member of the conference's quartet for two years. At the end of that time, he returned to Pennsylvania to be with his father who died three years later.

The day after his father's funeral service, Faith for Today contacted him about coming to sing in the quartet. This was actually the third time they had approached him, the previous two having been while he was a student at AU, when Harold Lickey wanted to leave the quartet, and when he was beginning his work as a pastor.

He sang with the quartet from 1959 to 1966. In addition to singing, he edited the audio recordings made by the quartet and answered letters from those who had questions about the group or its music, as well as questions posed by young people taking the Junior Bible Course. In his editing, he pioneered the idea of editing from the back or the last taping rather than searching from the beginning for acceptable segments.

Also, being the oldest member of the quartet, he served as spokesman for the group after Herbert Hohensee left the group in 1963. While the quartet had traditionally limited its repertoire to sacred music, they developed a secular program in 1965. Schleenbaker later talked about this change and the good humor that was part of working at FFT.

Schleenbaker had been ordained in 1963, based on his several years of pastoral work, devotion to the ministry of music, and work at the FFT Bible School. Elmer Walde, then Radio and TV Secretary of the General Conference, and Don Roth, along with Elder Fagal, officiated in his ordination service at the New York Center in Times Square.

When the Faith for Today quartet was dismantled in September of 1966, Schleenbaker was hired by the Greater New York Conference as Director of the New York Center. He was responsible for caring for the physical plant, making arrangements for programs in the auditorium, and overseeing finances. After a year in that position he became Director of Trust Services for the conference, a position he held until 1974. During that time he worked with the Metropolitan Evangelistic Team, appearing at least once during each of their crusades to sing solos and join in singing with the Crusade Trio.

Having been involved with his family in business for much of his life, he always had an interest in having his own business. In 1974, after resigning from the conference office, he purchased a Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Franchise in The Bronx. In 1977, tiring of the stress of working in New York (his store robbed at gunpoint three times), he sold the business and moved to the Collegedale, Tennessee, area.

He had always had an interest in flying, taking his first flying lesson when he was 15 years old. Over the years he had flown as a private aviator. Wanting desperately to fly as a vocation he first hired on with Little Debbie Snack Cakes as a long-haul truck driver, driving eighteen-wheelers throughout the southeast. The president recommended this as a step to getting into the flight department.

One year later, he transferred to the flight department where he earned his final rating as Airline Transport Pilot, became lead captain on the King Air 200 turboprop, and a captain on the Citation III jet. This fulfilled a lifetime dream of getting to the top in aviation. He remained at this job until he retired 12 years later, in 1992.

He also continued to sing. In 1985, he developed an ulcer on his vocal chords, and had surgery that affected and weakened his voice. Even so, he continues to sing in choral groups in Collegedale and is occasionally featured as a soloist in their concerts. Quartet singing, however, has been his lifetime focus in music, since he sang in quartets for 26 years.

ds/2007